When the Allens let her off, Dorothy went into the barn to find him. Uncle Henry's back was to the door. He wasn't doing any chores, he had no tools in his hand; he had simply been standing with his back to the door. And then he turned and looked at Dorothy as if he hated her.
What have I done now? thought Dorothy in dismay. She had come to think of Uncle Henry as her only friend, even if he did smell. Henry glowered at her, darkly, and he seemed to loom larger in the half-light. He seemed to fill the lopsided crib they graced with the name of barn. His eyes burned. Dorothy said nothing. She shook her head, trying to say: I've done nothing. I didn't know I'd done anything. I didn't mean to do anything, Henry stood stock-still, full of what looked like rage.
Dorothy crept back toward the house. Every limb felt weighted down by cold. She wanted to lie down and die. Whatever was wrong with her, the bad blood, had done it again. Even Uncle Henry hated her. She thumped slowly up into the wooden house.
"Evening, Dorothy," said Aunty Em briskly, looking up from her account book. She wore little round spectacles, and her eyes blinking behind them looked huge, like a frog's. "Nice day at school?"
"Yes, Mmm."
"Nice drive back with your uncle?"
Aunty Em didn't know. Aunty Em didn't know Henry had not come for her. That must mean he really hated her, to do that and not tell Em. He must not have ever wanted her to come back.
"Yes, Mmm," replied Dorothy, devastated. The house seemed to be made of bone.
"Once you've got yourself warmed up, there's some cuts I fetched up from the cellar for frying. They've still got enough lard on them, so you won't need to use any more. Waste not, want not."
Aunty Em went back to her business. Dorothy cooked the evening meal, watching her hands move, as if they were someone else's. The months-old pork, sealed in its own lard, was gray and flabby and slightly damp from delayed putrescence. Dorothy watched it smoke and steam. There was a scar on the bottom of her thumb. She took rags to bed with her at night. She watched the smoke rise and wished her bad blood could be similarly consumed, burned clean. She wished she could be burned clean. Perhaps if she drank carbolic, that would burn her clean from the inside, and then she would die clean.
Uncle Henry clumped into the house, with eyes as desperate as butterflies flitting. He was smiling. It was a thin smile, keen and sharp, and his movements were changed. Gone was the dear, slow, sad Henry. This man flickered, hands and eyes darting. Dorothy passed him a plate of food and he did not look at her. When she sat down, he turned away, crossing his legs in the other direction. Dorothy ate the tired old pork as if it were her due. It tasted of old wooden floors and rancid fat. They would all smell each other, all through the night.
"That was a right smart supper, Dodo, thank you," said Aunty Em, with a smile. The only thing Dorothy knew about dodos was that they were extinct.
"Don't you worry about the washing-up," said Aunty Em. "You just get on with your home studies. Henry, please could we clear a space for Dodo's books?"
Henry said nothing, but stood up and went out into the night.
Aunty Em looked at Dorothy, smiling crookedly. "I surely hope he manages to produce something tonight."
They were all bound up tighter than drums with pork and no vegetables. Aunty Em's face was kind. It was taking Dorothy into her confidence, as if she were almost an adult. This confused Dorothy mightily. No! she thought. It's too soon for that. She didn't want to be treated like an adult. She wanted to be treated like a child. She wanted to be sat on someone's knee and be told a story; she wanted to sit on someone's knee and do nothing, leave the work behind.
"Dorothy," chuckled Aunty Em. "No need to be shocked, child, there are some things that are perfectly natural to talk about sometimes." She stroked Dorothy's hair with fondness.
"Now you get settled in," said Em with a sigh, and stood up and collected the dishes with a fine clattering of clay.
The next morning Henry got up and gave her a ride in to school, and neither of them mentioned that he had left her alone, waiting at the bridge. They sat coldly side by side but at a distance. He did not even ask her how she had found her way home.
Dorothy passed the day at school in even deeper silence than usual, hugging the books that she yearned to lose forever.
In the afternoon, she walked back down Poyntz and along the road toward the bridge. She had made plans. If Henry was not there, she would slip back into the school and sleep by one of the stoves. But Uncle Henry was there, blue in the dusk, waiting for her, holding the horse's lead.
And that night, as he led the horse and the cart toward the barn, he grabbed her wrist, and pulled her with him. Inside the barn, he held her to him and blurted out a kind of a sob. He rested his shaggy, smelly head on her shoulder and neck, and his cheeks were damp and he pressed her to him.
He did love her after all. Dorothy went weak from gratitude. She hugged him back, and his huge, rough hands pushed her even closer to him. The whole length of his body was against her, and he kissed her cheek. Was he saying he was sorry? He must be. Dorothy kissed him back. She meant to kiss him on the cheek, but he turned his head and their mouths met. That startled Dorothy and she jumped back. He worked her shoulder, and his smile crumpled and went grim. He turned away, and Dorothy wondered again if she had done wrong.
The next day, the ride was joyful. Uncle Henry sang old campfire songs. Dorothy had never seen him like that. She giggled and he turned his eyes toward her and they had a sparkle she had never seen before. It suddenly occurred to her that Uncle Henry had once been young. He would have been a young, broad-shouldered man with sparkling eyes. And bad teeth.
So when did it begin? Every evening in the barn, or sometimes in the woods, when it was dark, he would pull the wagon to a stop, and hidden under lap robes, he would tickle her. Dorothy was getting bored with being prodded and tickled. Henry kept looking back and forth up the road as if it were something naughty, something bad. She pitied him. Poor Henry, old Henry, she thought, and she hugged him. Was that bad? He was just hugging her, and he loved her, so was it bad?
His hands were blunt and large and rough. They kept rubbing her shoulders. When did they begin to rub her legs?
She remembered him cupping both her tiny breasts in his hands. "Pretty little things," he had said, forlornly. Even then, Dorothy was not sure that it was bad. He looked into her eyes. His eyes were blue and large, cold and soft at the same time, and his cheeks were always bright red on deep brown and covered with tiny purple veins all over the surface. He looked lost.
"Do you like it when I touch you there?" he asked.